Writing Persuasive Essays guides your students step by step through the process of building an argument that convinces readers of the strength of an opinion. Instructions, activities, examples, interactives, and downloads help students gain new writing strategies and skills. You can also present this unit right from your interactive whiteboard.

First students think about opinions and reasons that support them. Then students read a persuasive paragraph and essay and respond to them in writing. Afterward, students are ready to build their own arguments to persuade readers.

Prewriting activities help students brainstorm topics that they care about, select one, write an opinion statement, and gather reasons and evidence to support their opinions.

Writing activities help students create a beginning that catches the reader's interest and introduces the opinion statement, middle paragraphs that present main reasons and supporting details, and an ending paragraph that calls the reader to act.

Revising activities help students arrange their reasons and details using order of importance, answer objections to their argument, and use a peer response to improve their work.

Editing activities help students correct subject-verb agreement and usage errors and use a checklist to improve their writing.

Publishing activities help students create a clean final copy of their work and reflect on their persuasive essays.